A while back, New Jersey's Screaming Females achieved the prestigious distinction of coolest band ever to crash at my apartment. I wasn't home that night, but I had been present earlier that evening at the Middle East, where they incinerated many a face while opening for Throwing Muses. It was, nonetheless, an unwise decision to call themselves Screaming Females. Singer/shredder Marissa Paternoster is the power trio's sole female, and the only one who does any screaming.

As of Power Move, however, it's too late to contemplate rebranding. Here we have a trenchant, hazy garage-rock release sporting an atypical abundance of guitar solos, and ample evidence that Screaming Females are diligent students of rock and roll's past 45 years or so. Power Move fluctuates, almost jarringly, between piquant, sunny Pixies-ish segments and lumbering, ballsy Black Sabbathine sectors. That doesn't usually happen in the same song, but it's spiffy when it does, as in "Lights Out," with its great big accelerating crescendo.

For some reason, the vocals are frequently trampled by the instrumentation — though it's hard to say whether that's on purpose or I just need new speakers.

Ted Leo | The Brutalist Bricks Leave it to Ted Leo to find his way from "There was a resolution pending on the United Nations floor" to "Tell the bartender I think I'm falling in love."

Fall Music Preview: Stay positive The face of the local nightlife landscape undergoes a major change in the form of a renewal this autumn, as the State Theatre’s exhaustively maligned absence ends on October 15, with 10 fall concerts on their docket already. But that’s not the only new venue to look out for.

Review: Screaming Females | Castle Talk Screaming Females are one of those rare examples of a band who fester so long in the dark — in this case, the teeming basements of New Brunswick, New Jersey — that they sour into something great by the time anyone’s heard of them.

Screaming Females at SPACE Gallery, September 27 Screaming Females have played Portland regularly as their blog-fueled star has risen; the buzz behind them is of a time-honored punk tradition (their albums are fine, but they are essential live viewing), but their punk itself is not.

HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS | WELCOME OBLIVION | March 13, 2013 Whereas the monsters and ghosts of NIN songs can scream in your face and rip you to bits with their fangs, Welcome Oblivion tracks like techno-folk haunter "Ice Age" and the doom-pop jaunt "How Long?" make uncredited cameo appearances in your nightmares until you go insane and eat your own hands.

JOHNNY MARR | THE MESSENGER | February 25, 2013 Going solo is rarely a good decision. For every exception to the rule of who flourishes after unburdening themselves of the half-talents that have been holding them back — Justin Timberlake, for one — there are dozens of embarrassing Dee Dee Ramone rap albums that exist because Joey and Johnny Ramone weren't around to kibosh a terrible idea.

WHAT'S F'N NEXT? BUKE AND GASE | January 29, 2013 Almost every person I've told about Buke and Gase assumes that they'll hate this band, which isn't their fault.

BLEEDING RAINBOW | YEAH RIGHT | January 23, 2013 The only defect of the sort-of-but-not-really debut from Bleeding Rainbow (no longer called Reading Rainbow, possibly due to litigious ire festering under LeVar Burton's genial television persona) is that the Philly foursome merely hop off the launching point forged by Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and a handful of others from the oft-exalted grunge era.